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As listeners vote in our online poll for the year's best music, All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen sees three emerging trends: more bands from Canada, more bands from Sweden and an obsession with animals.

A car bomb attack kills Brig. Gen. Francois Hajj, and at least two others. The target of the attack, Hajj, a top Maronite Catholic in the command, was considered a leading candidate to succeed the head of the military, Gen. Michel Suleiman, if Suleiman is elected president.

Dmitry Medvedev, whom Russian President Vladimir Putin has endorsed as his successor, says he would appoint Putin prime minister if elected. That could allow Putin to hold on to power, but some analysts say it's unclear if that is Putin's plan.

One of the top priorities before Congress adjourns for the holidays is a bill that would prevent more than 20 million middle-class Americans from having to pay the alternative minimum tax in 2008. The Senate recently approved a repair to the rule, but neglected to pay for it with spending cuts.

As Kosovo's future remains in doubt, the city of Mitrovica, the province's most divided community, is noticeably tense. Members of the Serbian community say they can't live in an independent Kosovo under majority Albanian rule. Albanians driven from the north say they want to return to their homes.

In January 2003, U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) took over as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and, as the ranking member, was briefed in February 2003 on the existence of videotapes of CIA interrogations.

The Justice Department and the CIA's Inspector General are both investigating the agency's 2005 destruction of videotapes of the interrogations of top al-Qaida operatives. The Justice Department has already started what it calls a "preliminary inquiry" into the matter.

Novelist Geraldine Brooks, poet Robert Hass, Western essayist William Kittredge: from critic Alan Cheuse, an array of books to keep winter's chill and the ever-earlier dark at bay — at least in the circle of light by the reader's chair.

News broke Thursday that in 2005, the CIA destroyed at least two videotapes made three years earlier that showed harsh interrogation techniques. Intelligence committee members from both parties say they weren't told about the tapes or about plans to destroy them.

CIA director Michael Hayden says the agency destroyed videotapes of its interrogations of two top al Qaida suspects, made in 2002. Philip Zelikow, executive director of the 9/11 Commission, had hoped to review the tapes.